Last week, I got a chance to talk to Mike Laidlaw, creative director on Dragon Age: Inquisition, and he told me a little bit more about the game's story—it might sound a bit familiar for those of you that have played a BioWare game before.

"The Inquisitor stands out from just anybody [in the world of Dragon Age] in large part because the Inquisitor has undergone a magical mark...as a result of being at an explosion," Laidlaw said. The Inquisitor survives the blast and receives a magical etching of sort, much like Shepard survives the beacon in Mass Effect 1. The big question is, what purpose does the mark serve?

Dragon Age: Inquisition producer Cameron Lee was optimistic when we talked about what the upcoming PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One game will do to bring BioWare dialogue wheeling into the future.

He told CVG how players will shape the Inquisition and in turn the world, how it will balance a strong narrative thread with more room to explore than ever before, and what weary fans hoping for a "return to form" means for BioWare.

He also addressed whether players can expect to romance a certain crossbow-wielding dwarf, but you'll have to read on to find out about that (potential) love connection.

There are certain things we've come to expect from BioWare games. Things like an emphasis on fleshed-out characters and on structured narratives that you can impact to some degree with the choices you make. With Dragon Age: Inquisition, BioWare is aiming to maintain these design hallmarks while also placing you in a vast open world and giving you control of a much larger force than you've ever helmed before in a BioWare game. I recently spoke to executive producer Mark Darrah about how Inquisition will set itself apart from earlier Dragon Age games while still giving us the things we associate with BioWare.